A professor at Columbia University – known for his hostility toward Israel and support for the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement – has said that the only difference between the Jewish State and the Islamic State is that Zionist columnists defend Israel's "terrorist cause."

Hamid Dabashi, a professor in the university's Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, made the comments in a Facebook post last week.

The "murderous thugs" of the Islamic State terrorist organization "conquered parts of Syria and declared a 'caliphate,'" Dabashi wrote in the since-deleted post. Referring to the recent decision by the United States to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Dabashi charged: "Their ISRAELI counterparts meanwhile conquered parts of Syria and declared it part of their Zionist settler colony – no decent human being on planet earth recognizes their armed robbery ..."

He added: "The only difference: ISIS does not have a platoon of clean shaven and well coiffured [sic] columnists at the New York Times propagating the cause of the terrorist outfit as the Zionists columnists do on a regular basis."

Dabashi has a history of hateful comments about Israel and the Jewish people. In March 2018, Dabashi blamed Israel for every "dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world," and, in a Facebook post, called the Jewish State a "racist apartheid state." Dabashi is on the advisory board of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.

In an opinion piece for Al Jazeera last month, the professor wrote that "Jews are the victims, Zionists the beneficiaries of anti-Semitism. The conflation of Zionism and Judaism (...) is a false flag to confuse the issue and prevent the active solidarity of these two main victims of their racism."

The university chapter of Students Supporting Israel wrote in a statement Thursday: "This kind of utterly despicable and repugnant statement is not to be expected from a tenured faculty holder in an Ivy League institution."

A representative for Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.